Microsoft’s blank screen
Despite $10 billion-worth of investments in cable systems in America and Europe, Microsoft’s television strategy is in trouble
economist.com
Liberate has one big advantage over Microsoft: it has a product to sell. Microsoft’s software is not yet ready to ship. And cable operators, particularly in Europe, where competition from satellite operators is fiercest, are keen to push ahead. So earlier this year, Telewest announced that it was going with Liberate, even though Microsoft owns nearly a third of the company. Microsoft’s failure to deliver led UPC to delay the launch of its interactive service in Amsterdam. Now UPC has decided to go with Liberate. And NTL, Britain’s biggest cable operator, has had to abandon plans to buy its software from a third company.
What has gone wrong for Microsoft? Windows, says the general consensus. “It’s Microsoft’s DNA,” says Mitchell Kertzmann, Liberate’s chief executive. “They’re genetically programmed to try to put Windows in everywhere. But Windows is big and bulky. Set-top boxes don’t have enough memory or fast-enough processors to deal with it.” Ed Graczyk, director of the Microsoft TV Platform Group, does not contradict him: “We want to deploy Microsoft TV when it’s bullet-proof.” He claims that Microsoft TV will be technically superior to the competition, when it finally reaches the market.
Microsoft ... we don't suck as much as people say.
liberate.com |
